Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Tues - Online advertising soars in US

Internet advertising revenues in the US reached $3.1bn in the last quarter. This is the highest ever recorded and a 34% increase on the same period last year.

And the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said the total spent on internet advertising could exceed $12bn this year, way above last years record of $9.6bn. The largest chunk of this online advertising now comes from search based advertising, a la Google. Poor old DoubleClick, they have faded into the shadows thanks to Google and search based advertising.

This will provide yet more evidence of two critical trends that will contiunue well into the future. The first is that online advertising is here to stay and will continuously grow for the next many years. The demise of traditional advertising has only just begun. But it will be brutal going forwards. The second is that search based advertising in general will absolutely change the software industry. Software will be sold as services and advertising will be how software companies will earn their money going forwards - particularly to consumers.

So, anyone wanting to start a new company, you can't go much wrong by launching a necessary online software service backed up by Google ads. And if your a traditional media company - get into the internet in a bigger and better way fast or you'll leave all the money to Google, Yahoo etc.